Only God…

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. 
But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace.” But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed. (Acts 16:25–40)

This is one of those “only God” stories. The time of the earthquake, the shaking opened prison doors, the Christian prisoners stayed put, the jailer was protected (losing prisoners was an automatic death sentence), and not only that, he was given faith and saved — a changed man.

To top it off, the people who persecuted these Christian men decided to free them. But what did Paul do? He demanded they be treated according to their law that said Roman citizens should not be treated that way. They didn’t go out as they were told.

Right now, in our country Christians can be charged for breaking a law that protects certain kinds of sin. Perhaps we should spend more time praying and singing to God? 

Lord, You are perfectly able to protect Your people from unfair or illegal treatment. Yet we should pray for Holy Spirit boldness rather than stay silent in fear of being tossed in jail or worse. I’m thinking that silence could cause me to miss opportunities to see jailers (for instance) experience Your amazing grace. If I don’t see You in action, should I be wondering why not?

 

God knows my heart

 

And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” (Genesis 20:2–7)

God’s man is in foreign territory and fearful for his life. He told the king of that place that Sarah was his sister and the king took her, only to be told by God she was Abraham’s wife. The king pleaded ignorance and God already knew this so he spared him. Not only that, He protected Sarah from his advances and told the king to return her or he would suffer the consequences.

Such is the love and power of God. Abraham was far from perfect and usually trusted God, but this time he took matters into his own hands and could have lost his wife and his life. Yet God intervened based on His knowledge of this king’s heart. He prevented Abimelech from even touching her. 

If I were in a position of power, listening to the politicians and other people of influence would make me want to take matters into my own hands at times also. Even the sins of those I know are enough to get a rise out of me. But I don’t know their hearts. This is not an excuse to do nothing, but it is a reason to pray for them, like Abraham prayed for the king so he would live. 

Two people come to mind. One uses aches and pains to gain attention. The other gets horribly upset and snarky over the most trivial things. They don’t know God — and I don’t know  their life issues or the stresses they endure. I know that they need Jesus, yet even then, Christians struggle when life puts them in fear and they try to fix it themselves. I’ve done it too.

Jesus, this story has a lesson for me: Don’t jump to conclusions when others do the wrong thing. In this case, the king did what he thought was okay. I’ve gone that route myself. When corrected, he pleaded innocence “in the integrity of his heart” and God knew this was true. You know my heart also. Enable me to always match the inner person and the outward actions, without pretense or excuses, always remembering that You know my heart.

God is Amazing

 

READ 2 Kings 18–21

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to turn on the news and discover that God replaced the leaders of our land with godly people who obeyed Him and brought great and good changes to our nation? Would we think we were dreaming? In the OT, the divided nation had many evil leaders, but a few were not. When Israel was falling apart, God gave Judah an outstanding king who ruled well for nearly thirty years.

Hezekiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord . . . . removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah.” The people had been making offerings to the bronze serpent that Moses had made so he broke it in pieces. “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.” (2 Kings 18:1–7)

However, the Assyrian threat against Israel was extended to Judah and Hezekiah turned to God in prayer:

“O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.” (19:15–19)

God answered and part of what He said was this promise: “The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this . . . . Concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” (19:30–34)

That very night, the angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. Their king, who had boasted of destroying Judah, departed and went home. While he worshiped his god, his sons killed him. (19:35–37)

Later, Hezekiah became ill and asked that God would heal him. God did, affirming His answer with a promise to defend Jerusalem “for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.” He also gave this king a sign through Isaiah the prophet by turning back the shadow on the steps. (20:3–11)

His son Manasseh didn’t follow his father’s godly attitude. He reigned fifty-five years but “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” and led the people astray “to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.” (21:1–9) Because of that, God said:

Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.

Like all before him, Manasseh eventually died and his son Amon carried on his evil practices. But his servants conspired to put him to death. Then the people struck down those conspirators and made Josiah his son king in his place. (21:19–24)

The nations today are not the OT people of God. That status belongs to those who have the faith of Abraham — genuine Christians. Yet God still uses the activities of the world to bring glory to Himself. We attended a dinner last night that featured Ukrainian food and the stories from several who told how God protected them and did amazing things enabling them to escape the horrors in their homeland. Again, my faith in God’s sovereignty increases. My life is ordinary compared to those stories but trusting God is never without wonder nor His surprising answers to prayer.

 

God’s protection

 

READ Ezekiel 25–28

The congregation was silent, attentive, as we listened to amazing stories of God’s work and protection in the lives of a couple who work in a country where talking about Jesus is illegal. His ministry through them and His protection of them went beyond our wildest imaginations. No surprise that today’s reading outlines God’s care for His OT people by what He did to entire nations that went against them. God’s words to Ezekiel are specific.

Against Ammon the Lord God says, “Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within your soul against the land of Israel, therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand against you, and will hand you over as plunder to the nations. And I will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries; I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 25:6–7)

He says of Moab and Seir that they will be given to other nations and experience His judgments that they “will know that I am the Lord.” It is the same for Edom who “grievously offended in taking vengeance on them.” God says He will cut them off, make them desolate as they fall by the sword and “know my vengeance.” Philistia also would suffer the same fate. (25:8–17)

Ezekiel gives more specific descriptions of what Tyre, what God will do, and specific judgments against their leaders that sound like God is rebuking Satan himself as the one being their activities. Tyre looked good, was prosperous, highly involved in commerce with other nations, yet God says, “Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she shall become plunder for the nations, and her daughters on the mainland shall be killed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” (26:1–6)

My mother often talked about this prophecy, especially this part Ezekiel repeated: “I will make you a bare rock. You shall be a place for the spreading of nets. You shall never be rebuilt.” (26:13–14) It happened as God said. I’m also noticing personification that begins with:

Now you, son of man, raise a lamentation over Tyre, and say to Tyre, who dwells at the entrances to the sea, merchant of the peoples to many coastlands, thus says the Lord God: “O Tyre, you have said, ‘I am perfect in beauty . . . .’ (27:2–3)

After describing Tyre’s fate, the prophet spoke as if to a person:

You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you . . . on the holy mountain of God . . . in stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you . . . . By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever. (28:11–19)

Ezekiel ends with a short prophecy against Sidon’s bloody and terrible end, then God says:

“When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.” (28:25–26)

God protects His OT people from all other nations. He still protects His own, just as we heard yesterday and will never forget. Nothing and no one can separate us from the love and gracious care of our God!